A very conspicuous feature in the AEtnean cone consists of a great valley known as the Val del Bove, or Bull Hollow, which extends from the base of the modern and ever-changeable cinder cone down the flanks of the older structure to near its base. This valley has steep sides, in places a thousand or more feet high, and has evidently been formed by the down-settling of portions of the cone which were left without support by the withdrawal from beneath them of materials cast forth in a time of explosion. In an eruption this remarkable valley was the seat of a vast water flood, the fluid being cast forth from the crater at the beginning of the explosion. In the mouths of this and other volcanoes, after a long period of repose, great quantities of water, gathering from rains or condensed from the steam which slowly escapes from these openings, often pours like a flood down the sides of the mountains. In the great eruption of Galongoon, in Java, such a mass of water, cast forth by a terrific explosion, mingled with ashes, so that the mass formed a thick mud, was shot forth with such energy that it ravaged an area nearly eighty miles in diameter, destroying the forests and their wild inhabitants, as well as the people who dwelt within the range of the amazing disaster. So powerfully was this water driven from the crater that the districts immediately at the base of the cone were in a manner overshot by the vast stream, and escaped with relatively little injury. When it comes forth from the base of the cinder cone, or from one of the small peripheral craters, the lava stream usually appears to be white hot, and to flow with almost the ease of water. It does not really have that measure of fluidity; its condition is rather that of thin paste; but the great weight of the material--near two and a half times that of water--causes the movement down the slope to be speedy. The central portion of the lava stream long retains its high temperature; but the surface, cooling, is first converted into a tough sheet, which, though it may bend, can hardly be said to flow. Further hardening converts these outlying portions of the current into hard, glassy stone, which is broken into fragments in a way resembling the ice on the surface of a river. It thus comes about that the advancing front of the lava stream becomes covered, and its motion hindered by the frozen rock, until the rate of ongoing may not exceed a few feet an hour, and the appearance is that of a heap of stone slowly rolling down a slope. Now and then a crevice is formed, through which a thin stream of liquid lava pours forth, but the material, having already parted with much of its heat, rapidly cools, and in turn becomes covered with the coating of frozen fragments. In this state of the stream the lava flow stands on all sides high above the slope which it is traversing; it is, in fact, walled in by its own solidified parts, though it is urged forward by the contribution which continues to flow